Flying through clouds of dust! - South Fork into Mrazek - Bend, OR

After two amazing high speed rides in loamy Oakridge we packed up and hit the road towards the more desert like Bend. There's two main routes to get there, and I recommend you choose the scenic yet slightly longer drive from Oakrdige as you'll get to wind through lakes and mountains ultimately passing by the three sisters, broken top mountain and mount bachelor as you drive into Bend with amazing vistas.

Just to give you a quick idea of today route, we caught a shuttle from the Loge hotel in Bend up to the Swampy trailhead, from there we followed the Swampy Lakes trail into south Fork down to Tumalo Creek. At this point most people go up north fork, which is longer but much more mellow climbing, we instead took the short but steep climb up farewell trail to Mrazek which we followed down back to the road. From the a few short trails got us back to our starting location after aproximately 28 miles with 2000 ft of climbing and 3500 ft of descending over 4 1/2 hours.

The ride starts out with a traverse which in general is not very steep and a little techy but works out as a great warm up for the riding to come. I apologize upfront as you'll notice a bit more wind noise than usual in this ride. The wind cover on my GoPro broke as I was setting up and I didn't have any extras with me that day.

As soon as you transition from Swampy Lakes to South Fork the trail opens up a bit, it still remains pedaly and with a low grade, but its great fun, as a personal opinion, this was my favorite go-fast section of trail in Bend. Depending on where you look this trail is rated as either a blue or black, and that confusion is actually my appreciation of it as well, its not very techinical, but its definitely super fast without much room for error; its not quite an intermediate, not quite an advanced trail, which, I'm sure many riders starting to make trips beyond their local trails would really appreciate as you get to experience different riding without being overwhelmed.

South fork still has a little bit more to go, but as you approach the creek at the bottom it gets a lot more lush and green. Now, I don't really remember saying this, but I guess I thought I was going pretty fast and there was no run off area cause...yeah, no crashing here...in hindsight, its probably a reflection on the fact that the sides of the trails are littered with fallen trees which don't look like they'd be much fun to hit. Maybe I still had that pedal strike from the day before in my head, who knows.

Eventually the fun on South Fork had to end, but not to worry, as soon as its over you are welcomed by the awesome view over Tumalo Creek, a spot in which its totally worth stopping and just relaxing for a while. Now, from here you can go up farewell trail as we did, short but steep, or go around north fork, which is much more scenic but longer. Its really up to each person to know if its worth going the extra distance to enjoy the falls and the mellow climb.

From here on out we followed Mrazek all the way down to the double track which would eventually lead us back to our lodging. One of the amazing things about Bend is the trail accesibility, you can shuttle up and then ride back down straight into town, but I'll go into more of that in the next video when we do Funner.

This really nice view point marks the start of the next descending section, its not as steep as south fork but its definitely not flat anymore, the technicality is pretty low which really give you the chance to flow with lots of turns and just let the bike go.

There is a caveat to be made for this route, the last 6 to 8 miles are mostly flat, the biggest elevation difference is about 150 vertical feet, meaning that by the time the fun is over, you still have a while of, well, kinda boring trail to go before you can exit onto the main road to head back to town. So, is this worth it? It really depends what kind of rider you are, if you're looking for all out fast descending or significant tech and gnar, then no, you probably wont love this, but if you're more towards flowy, less steep stuff, or if you like XC, or if you just want a technically easier but more long distance day, then yes, you'll like it. This is one of those places where your expectations will be the key element to determine if its right for you. I personally enjoy the riding style of Oakridge more, but know people who would say otherwise, in short, to each their own.

Mrazek on Trailforks: https://www.trailforks.com/trails/mra...
Sout Fork on Trailforks: https://www.trailforks.com/trails/sou...